Category Archives: Film

Film news with a particular orientation towards Australia.

Jim Schembri departs The Melbourne Age after 28 years

AFTER a number of Twitter indiscretions, The Age’s long-serving entertainment writer Jim Schembri negotiates an exit.

In a memo sent to staff last night, editor-in-chief Paul Ramadge wrote: “After 28 years of dedicated service and hard work bringing a distinctive voice to The Age’s entertainment coverage as a film and TV critic and feature writer, Jim has decided to embrace other challenges.”

Last week, website Crikey erroneously reported Schembri had been “sacked from his position following revelations he had reportedly dobbed on the employers of his Twitter critics and hinted at taking legal action under the auspices of Fairfax Media”.

In fact, management only asked Schembri to take early leave after Crikey broke news of his Twitter transgressions. It is understood Schembri had a substantial amount of time owing and Fairfax Media did not comment on Schembri’s misdemeanours.

Schembri has since negotiated his departure. It is believed he will continue writing  on pop cultural matters elsewhere.

He is the published author of more than 40 books, including the memoir Room For One and eight novels for young children.

Schembri was one of the best-loved and contentious writers at The Age, with his Modern Fable series in the 1990s a particular favourite with readers. He cultivated a strong film blog, Cinetopia, for the newspaper and occasionally attracted the opprobrium of the film industry for his strident views on the industry despite his championing of comedy and certain filmmakers.

While presenting at this year’s AACTA Awards, A Few Best Men’s director Stephan Elliott asked Schembri to “stop the poison pen” and “hate” after the journalist wrote his film was “unreleasable”. It went on to earn $5 million.

At the 2008 AFI Awards, The Black Balloon’s co-writer, Jimmy Jack, responded to Schembri’s criticism of his film by reading the review before saying “Jim Schembri. F*** you.”

And last year, The Chaser’s Hamster Wheel program named its segment on internet discretions ‘The Schembris’ after the journalist revealed a major plot twist in his review of Scream 4 before retracting it and writing it was merely a ruse to fool the “Twittersphere.”

In the memo to staff, Ramadge thanked Schembri for his contribution and wished him well. He added Schembri “has chosen to forego farewell drinks and will arrange an informal gathering soon.”

Michael Bodey – The Australian, 16/3/12

Cameraman kills earless bunny

An earless baby bunny that was a rising star on Germany’s celebrity animal scene had his 15 minutes of fame brought to an abrupt end when he was accidentally stepped on by a television cameraman.

The fate of 17-day-old Til, a rabbit with a genetic defect, was plastered across German newspapers on Thursday, the same day a small zoo in Saxony was to have presented him to the world at a press conference.

The cameraman told Bild newspaper he had not seen Til, who had buried himself in hay, when he took the fateful step backwards on Wednesday.

Til was reportedly hidden under hay when he was stepped on.Til was reportedly hidden under hay when he was stepped on. Photo: AP

Zoo director Uwe Dempewolf told Spiegel magazine that Til did not suffer.

“We are all shocked. During the filming, the cameraman took a step back and trod on the bunny.

“He was immediately dead, he didn’t suffer. It was a direct hit. No one could have foreseen this. Everyone here is upset. The cameraman was distraught.”

Spiegel Online reported that the rabbit’s body would be frozen while zoo officials decided if it would be stuffed.

Germany has been home to several global animal celebrities in recent years, including polar bear Knut and Paul the prognosticating octopus.

AP and smh.com.au

YouTube poised to upend old film models

Nora the piano-playing cat is no longer the main attraction as other programming comes on YouTube.

Since watching YouTube’s Entertainment Matters keynote at the Consumer
Electronics Show in January, I’ve spent more and more time pondering YouTube.
And YouTube has been giving me more and more to ponder, as the site is moving
away from Nora the Piano Cat and distraught Britney Spears fans to more ambitious
content.

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that YouTube is getting ready to
burn down the filmed entertainment business as we know it. In fact, the match has
already been struck. We just haven’t felt the heat yet.

There’s been a lot of talk about targeted advertising and how that builds revenue
streams from YouTube, which reassures content producers and owners that there
will be a way to make money off Web video even as audiences splinter to
infinitessimal shards. That’s fine, but I think that talk assumes we’ll be watching the
same things, just watching them through YouTube instead of cable or broadcast.

But how people watch shapes what they watch. As people shift to watching YouTube
and other Web video services, longform video could become a niche product, just as
opera and classical music became niche products in a market dominated by pop
songs.

Continue reading YouTube poised to upend old film models

Margin Call opens in Australia

The feature film Margin Call is interesting for a number of reasons. It was written over four days by writer-director J.C. Chandor, who before that had made a number of shorts films and documentaries. It was shot in 17 days, and apparently the screenplay immediately began to attract ‘name’ actors as it began circulating LA.

Craig Matheison has the details:

SOMETIMES a young filmmaker only has to look to his family and upbringing for
compelling material. For his outstanding debut feature, Margin Call, American
writer-director J. C. Chandor tellingly explores the Wall Street life that his father
spent 35 years amidst working for the investment bank Merrill Lynch.

”It feels like an honest representation of that world,” says the 37-year-old Chandor,
who has only recently returned with his young family to their home in Rhode Island
after spending the awards season in Los Angeles following his Academy Awards
nomination for best original screenplay.

He wrote the moral thriller in just four days in 2009, but with its allusive dialogue,
twisted institutional allegiance and breached ethics, Margin Call does for Tom
Wolfe’s Masters of the Universe what David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross did for
shady salesmen: it creates a self-contained milieu where the characters are
compelled to reveal their true nature.

Continue reading Margin Call opens in Australia

John Carter tanks – bad news for Disney?

The failure of the sci-fi movie ‘John Carter’ opens up new questions about the studio’s weak pipeline and overall movie strategy, according to Kim Masters writing in the Hollywood Reporter.

Now that John Carter has landed with a resounding thud <at the US domestic box
office> , Hollywood is trying to decipher whether Disney will conclude that it needs
to change the guard or at least tweak its strategy when it comes to homegrown live-
action films.

Since chairman Rich Ross, 50, arrived in October 2009 and set out to remake the
film studio, competitors and others have been watching to see whether the former
cable television executive could find his legs in the movie business. Some in the
industry — pointing to marketing missteps and a sputtering pipeline — had turned
thumbs down even before Carter failed, bringing an expected write-down of more than $150 million. Others believe that Ross, perceived as a favorite of Disney chief
executive Robert Iger, will escape blame and be judged instead on next year’s slate.

Continue reading John Carter tanks – bad news for Disney?

Screenwriters being rewritten – the Hollywood model

Why does anyone want to be a screenwriter? It is the most difficult job in the
business. Facing a blinking cursor and a blank screen is much tougher than
interpreting that screenplay. And for this arduous work, the screenwriter is
compensated less than the producers, director, and stars: It is pretty rare for even an
A-list writer to get any kind of big-money profit participation on a film, while it is de
rigueur for those in the aforementioned categories. And, unlike the other artists who
work on films — and in most other art forms — it is common and even pro forma to
replace a screenwriter on a studio project. While book editors probably have given
notes to e.e. cummings and Norman Mailer, I doubt anyone ever rewrote them. I
can’t imagine that after Bruce Springsteen sent Columbia Records the songs for Born
to Run, an executive said to him, “That’s great Boss, or, eh, The Boss, but we think it
best to hand these over to John Fogerty and let him do a pass on them.” Dalí, Rodin,
and Chopin would probably be aghast to learn of how motion picture scripts are
developed. On a big-budget film, it is not uncommon for six or more writers to have
worked on the screenplay, including the director and a friend of the star who is
brought in just to work on his character’s dialogue. After 27 years working in this
industry, I’ve heard many writers complain about unjust situations or how a movie
could have been better had their work made it to the screen, but not about the actual
experience of being rewritten or rewriting someone else. So in search of illumination
on the topic, I decided to ask a group of four top script writers — David Koepp
(Jurassic Park, Spider-Man), Brian Koppelman (Rounders, Ocean’s Thirteen), Jeff
Nathanson (Catch Me If You Can, The Terminal), and Andy Walker (Se7en, Sleepy
Hollow) — for their thoughts on the curiously standard procedure of swapping
writers on movies.

Continue reading Screenwriters being rewritten – the Hollywood model

Feature projects to receive development from SA

Screen Australia today announced over $350,000 to support 13 filmmaking teams
develop their feature film projects, taking them to the next level on the path towards
production readiness. Five new projects have been added to the development slate
while eight teams will receive continued support to develop their projects. Genres
include horror, comedy, romantic comedy, drama, adventure and children’s
animation.

Among the new projects to receive support for development is The Tunnel: Dead
End, the sequel to the successful crowd-funded online horror feature film The Tunnel
from producer/writers Enzo Tedeschi and Julian Harvey and director Carlo
Ledesma.

Continue reading Feature projects to receive development from SA

Britain enters a golden era of the short film

According to Sarah Morrison of The Independent, Britain is entering a golden era of the short film. Apparently the medium has moved out of art houses and into the mainstream as its popularity soars.

Charlie Chaplin built a career on them, and brands are now using them to sell their
latest products. The short film, once a slightly marginal staple of art houses and film
buffs, is experiencing a golden era in Britain and is reportedly reaching wider
audiences than ever before.

Advances in film-making technology and the growth of the internet are behind the
rise, experts say, but their popularity is down to more than digital progress. The
short film, with its capacity to convey ideas concisely, is capturing the mood of an
increasingly time-pressed, information-hungry generation.

Briony Hanson, director of film at the British Council, said we are at a “watershed
moment” when it comes to the proliferation of “perfect little vessels that tell a story
in their own right”. “We are looking at a golden era in Britain,” she said. “Just over
20 per cent of shorts in the total Sundance [Film Festival] selection were UK-made in
2012, while last year, the figure was 6 per cent.”

Continue reading Britain enters a golden era of the short film

Tropfest 2012 winners

Wild weather can’t dampen spirits as winner adds some fizz to
Tropfest

Garry Maddox – SMH – February 20, 2012

Winners are grinners … Alethea Jones (with some other dude in the background)

IN THE race between the films and an approaching thunderstorm, the films won –
but only just – at the 20th Tropfest in the Domain last night.

In heavy rain and intermittent lightning, a judging panel that included Cate
Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Nicole Kidman, Toni Colette, Asher Keddie and John
Polson gave the top prize at the country’s biggest short film festival to Alethea Jones
forLemonade Stand, a comedy about a man and his grandfather whose efforts to sell
lemonade bring a clash with an officious council officer.

She collected her prize in a near-deserted Domain, without a working microphone,
amid a few hundred hardy souls sheltering in the VIP tent.

Jones said she was ”absolutely thrilled” and ready to take the next step in her
filmmaking career. Asked whether she planned to step up from shorts to a feature
film, Jones said: ”I’ve got five ready to go.” She is the third woman to win in the past
five years, winning two weeks after signing up for the dole.

In a year in which the 700-plus entries were required to include a ”lightbulb” as the
signature item, Jones’s prizes include a trip to Los Angeles to meet film industry
executives, a $6000 camera and $10,000 cash.

Continue reading Tropfest 2012 winners